Tuesday, 20 March 2012

It's officially the first day of spring! Let's celebrate it with a gorgeous editorial from 1959 full of perfect little dresses - and the most adorable lamb!

The time of the bare cotton pastoral is just a calendar page away, or, if you live South, right now. This season's cottons are all-out pretty, and very largely pink. They offer wide, starchy skirts and demure little tops. The young cotton pastorals (before you) put pink gingham checks to especially becoming purpose, and restore quilted pink flower prints to service. Result: the most beguiling country day-to-dark dresses.

A pink beach-club dress that is apropos at nearly every gathering from luncheon through dancing. Lightly printed over the pink are clover blossoms in full, white bloom, By Anne Fogarty, in quilted Everglaze cotton by Everfast. About $40. Fresh spring make-up by Milkmaid - "Cherry Pink" lipstick, "Violet Frost" EyeShadowStick.

A pink gingham check with a white organdie overband at the hem and neckline to provide a charming look of crispness, no matter how sultry the day. By Junior Accent. About $35. Pumps, Delman.

A further exploration in pink gingham checks. By Man'selle. In junior sizes. About $35. The hat by Richard Englander.

Spring opens a space in the lives of all of us for the gentle, pastoral cotton that suggests a clearly romantic spirit (it was not by chance that Irwin Shaw called his remarkable study of the susceptibility of the make "The Girls in Their Summer Dresses"). This spring cottons are more irresistible than ever.

One of the most delicious prints of Provence - a many-coloured length of field flowers - is here turned into a dress in every way proper to it. There are fragile little sleeves, and a devotedly tucked bodice. By Amerique, in Loomskill cotton lawn. In junior sizes. About $24. Hat, Richard Englander.

Two approaches to dotted Swiss - the one on the left is a pure shirtwaist (about $55); the one of the right (about $55) has a nice, shawl collar. Both by Malcolm Charles, in Stoffel cotton.